Installing Slackware Linux Part 2 - setup

Now that we have our Linux partitions created, at the root prompt we can type setup



This is the main setup menu. You can read the help if you like, but you can just skip down to ADDSWAP unless you need to remap your keyboard for some reason. Use the arrow keys to navigate, and enter to select.



It will detect your swap partition for you, format it (mkswap) and activate it (swapon)

Note: The hard disk devices in these screenshots are /dev/sda. Don't pay any attention to that, it's just because I took these screenshots from within a virtual machine. It emulates disks as scsi devices. Just know that's not the disk we partitioned in the examples above, so there's no confusion.

After completing a step, setup automatically takes you to the next step in sequence. Next, is to select the target partitions. Here is where we choose our root partition, and then choose mount points for the other partitions.



This is where we select our root partition (/). Following our partitioning example, that would be /dev/hda2.



Now it will prompt you to format the partition. I would choose to check for bad blocks while it's formatting.



Choose your desired filesystem. I like to use ext2 because it's a simple filesystem that's well matured, but you may want to choose ext3 or reiserfs to have a journaling filesystem.



Now it prompts to choose the inode density for the filesystem. Just hit enter to go with the default of 4096 unless you know what you are doing, and specifically why you want to do it.

If you just created a root partition and swap, you are done formatting now. If you created other partitions, they must now be selected, formatted and assigned mount points.



Swap doesn't show up in this list.



We are mounting this partition as /usr.

Continuing on, we are prompted to select, assign mount points and format the rest of our partitions in the same manner.





When finished, a summary is displayed



In the next step, you will be prompted to select the source media.



Hit enter to choose a Slackware CDROM, and it should detect it automatically.

In the next step, we are prompted to select package categories.



These govern which series of packages will be installed on the system. By default, all categories are selected except KDEI (KDE i18N internationalization). If you're just going to be using English/Western charsets you don't need to install KDEI.

For your first time installing Slackware, I recommend leaving all package categories enabled. You can just choose OK here.

Next, we are prompted to choose the "prompt mode", that is, the degree of interaction for installing packages.



Full, installs all packages in the categories you've selected, without prompting. This is what I recommend for your first Slackware install. Install everything, and you can easily remove packages you don't want later after you get a feel for things. I do know what I'm doing, but this is the option I normally use. It's just easier.

Newbie prompts for each package as they are being installed. I do not recommend this, as it is quite tedious. Also, you may not know what you want/need yet.

Menu is a bit better, as it lets you choose groups of related things.

Expert. If you know what you are doing, the expert prompt mode is an excellent way to choose exactly which packages you want installed on the system, prior to package installation. This really is good, it's not terribly confusing like similar package installation modes in other distributions.

The custom/tagfile options use tagfiles to automate a custom package selection. I've never used them. This would be handy if you were wanting to roll out the same installation on several machines though.

Choose full and watch the packages install non-interactively. It won't take very long, even on a relatively slow machine.



At some point during the package installation, you will be prompted to insert the second CD.

When the package installation stage completes, you are prompted to choose a kernel.



I recommend the CDROM option, and choosing the same kernel that you chose at the initial boot prompt when you booted with the Slackware CD. It got you this far. (If you just hit enter to accept the default, it's called bare.i)



Because I did these screenshots in a virtual machine that uses scsi emulation for the virtual disks, I had to choose scsi.s. On an IDE system, you probably either want bare.i or bareacpi.i (warning: acpi can cause boot problems if your BIOS implementation of ACPI doesn't jibe... this is why I recommend using the same kernel you chose at the initial boot prompt)

Next, you are prompted to create an emergency boot disk.



I highly recommend taking the time to create this disk, for it can be used to start the distribution if anything ever happens to your boot loader. You will be able to easily fix it, if you can start the system using this boot floppy.

You will now be prompted to create a symbolic link for your modem device.



If you have a modem, you can do that here. Saying "no modem" doesn't mean you can't use a modem, you can create the /dev/modem symbolic link later, or just use the appropriate device (e.g. /dev/ttyS1 for COM2)

Next, you will be prompted to enable the hotplug system. If you have such devices, say Yes, otherwise No is a good idea.



As you can see, it's possible for it to cause problems on some systems. Note the information on how to get out of the trap if it happens to you.

Now we are prompted to install the LILO bootloader.



You will most likely want to choose simple here. Choosing expert, will result in lilo not behaving as you expect and you'll have to manually edit the lilo.conf file (or run liloconfig from within the OS) to get the desired functionality back (e.g. it won't even prompt you to select an operating system). If you choose to skip the installation of lilo altogether, then you will only be able to boot into your Slackware system using the boot floppy that you created in the previous steps.

Next, you are prompted to choose the VGA (display) mode of your console, either standard VGA, or one of the VESA framebuffer display modes. The reason this is in the lilo configuration, is because the boot loader passes these parameters to the kernel on boot.



It is nice to have a framebuffer console for when you're not running XFree86, but if the framebuffer mode you've chosen doesn't work well with your display hardware, you could end up with an unusable display (until you fix it of course... you could boot with your boot floppy).

Consider choosing standard for now, to use standard VGA. You can change this parameter in your /etc/lilo.conf file later. If you're always going to be using the XFree86 GUI environment, it's not going to matter much anyways.

You are now prompted to enter any extra boot parameters, that lilo is to pass to the kernel.



He gives one very common example of why you might need to do this: If you have an IDE CD Writer. In the 2.4 kernel series, CD writing uses SCSI emulation and the kernel must know which drive is to use that mode, if both IDE-CD Support and IDE-SCSI support are to be loaded in the running kernel. The example of hdc, is for a secondary master. Use hdd if your writer is secondary slave.

Next, you are prompted to choose the destination for installing LILO. You will almost certainly want to choose MBR (unless you know what you are doing)



He says "possibly unsafe" because there are a few situations where writing to the master boot record is indeed unsafe. For example, if your bios doesn't support the capacity of the drive, and you have translation software installed (e.g. "MaxBlast" or "EZBios"). Another reason it could be unsafe is, if you are using another boot loader (e.g. System Commander, or Boot Magic). Also, before you ever write to the MBR (installing pretty much any OS), you must ensure that bios level MBR protection is disabled. (a.k.a boot virus protection, or "Trend ChipAway"). Installing LILO to the MBR, is the most common way that it is used and it is normally quite safe and can be used to start your Windows operating systems as well.

The "Root" option, to install LILO to the superblock of your root partition, is mainly useful if you intend to use another boot manager to invoke LILO.

Next, you are prompted to create a symbolic link for your mouse.



Even if you don't intend to use gpm, it's still useful to have a correct /dev/mouse symbolic link. This way you can just specify that device when you configure XFree86 after the OS is installed. I choose imps2 for my Logitech ps/2 wheel mouse.



I don't have much use for this (it's got nothing to do with using a mouse in the GUI), but if you wish to have mouse support at the console, you can load gpm at boot time.

At this point, you will be asked if you want to Configure your network. If you only have dial up networking, and don't even have a NIC, you can say No to that question for now, and you'll be prompted to configure your clock, timezone and set a root password. Alternatively you can proceed, and choose loopback. That is really what you should do, as then at least you'll set a hostname for the machine.